Free A Rose Revealed by Gayle Roper Page B

the cabinet when I heard the whoosh of Jake’s wheels.
    “Who’s here? What’s going on?” he asked. He didn’t sound too happy.
    “It’s me,” I whispered, shining my light at my face. I probably looked like a Halloween ghoul.
    “Rose.” His voice was decidedly testy.
    “Don’t go getting all grumpy.” I put my mug on the counter. “I’m not stealing the family jewels. I’m making a cup of tea. You want one?”
    “Why not?” He wheeled over to the table and lit the Coleman lantern that sat on it. The sudden bright light made me blink.
    “That’s too bright,” I said, shielding my eyes. “Midnight escapades call for soft light.” Also soft light might disguise how strange I must look with my combination of clothes and my uncombed hair and my nighttime face cream.
    Jake grunted and turned to an end table. He lifted the globe and lit a kerosene lamp. As soon as it took hold, I turned the Coleman off.
    “Much better,” I said.
    Jake had on a T-shirt and sweat pants. He had a blanket across his knees and another wrapped around his shoulders.
    “How did you know I was here?” I said. “I tried to be so quiet.”
    “It wasn’t your noise. It was the flashlight flickering. I wasn’t asleep yet, and I kept seeing streaks of light. I don’t close the door to the house at night in case I need to yell for help.”
    “You should get one of those baby intercoms,” I said.
    “We have one. Father just forgets to turn it on some nights. He’s convinced that the sound goes both ways.”
    I smothered a giggle and handed him a mug of tea. We sat at the table with hands wrapped around the warm mugs. The tea hadn’t steeped too well because the water wouldn’t boil, but warm and flavored were really my only requirements at the moment.
    “Do you always have tea in the middle of the night?” Jake asked.
    I shook my head. “Bad dream.”
    “I’m not surprised,” he said.
    “I am.” I stirred my sugar slowly. “I felt very lighthearted when I went to bed. Laughing about Ben was such a wonderful feeling. I expected to sleep like a baby. The nightmare was unexpected.”
    “The bomb?” Jake looked at me, his face shadowed by his angle to the lamp. He looked stern and haughty, but his voice was gentle.
    “Partly.” I stared into my tea, my mind re-creating what little I could actually recall of the dream. “It was a mishmash of the bomb and Dad and Rhoda and you. There were flashing lights and static and shouts. I’d forgotten about the shouts.”
    “Shouts?”
    “Over the roar of the water for Dad and Rhoda. Over the noise of the fire for Sophie and Ammon and over the roar of the rotor blades for you.”
    “For me?”
    “It’s funny. I hadn’t realized how the voices giving orders and issuing instructions meshed so firmly with the other memories until right now.” I looked at him. “Isn’t the mind a funny thing? I heard those voices at the time, but I didn’t consciously remember them until now. Not that I remember specific things said. It’s just the people calling.”
    “How do you know about me?”
    “I suppose at some emergency scenes, I’ve been the one shouting to be heard. Usually things are relatively quiet, and we talk in normal tones of voice. The last thing we want to do is upset the victims or their family and friends. But some scenes are so chaotic that you have to yell.”
    “How did I get into your dream?” Jake demanded as he laid a hand on my wrist.
    “What?” I blinked at him.
    “How did I get into your dream?”
    “I think I dreamed of the three accidents where I wasn’t part of the responding team but rather personally involved somehow. Of course I wasn’t as involved in any of them as I was in my father and Rhoda’s, but I was there with you and there with Sophie and Ammon.”
    “You were there with me?” His voice was fierce.
    I nodded. “Sure. Sitting there in the rain in the street. I thought help would never come!” Then I froze. My mind caught up